The fat girl next door would give us a nickelto walk to the old man's storeand get her an ice-cream cone,vanilla, of course, the only flavor then.On Powotan Avenue, Aunt Harriet and I would taketurns licking it all the way back.It was hot that summer and we longedto go to Virginia Beach and put our toes in the tide.[trained every day and the James River swelledup to our doorsteps.Aunt Harriet and I wore tight rubber bathing capsand long saggy bathing suits. How skinny we were.She was nine and I was six. The lightning flashedand we hid in the closet; the thunder crashed.We had straight, bobbed hair and bangs.Once a dirigible moved above the tops of the trees,with little ladders dangling down, and we waved.

How It Is

The sensible livingaren't interested in the dead,unless there is money in it.So little you can do with them.What they say is in your head.They visit in dreams but turn their backswhen you beg them to stay.They are never hiding in your closet.Empty jackets, loose sleeves yawnon the hangers. Their cold feetthat they rubbed and rubbedwith their long sensitive fingers,before they put on their socks,never come back with their finefitted bones to warm your bed.

The Porch

Whatsoever comes to the screen,firefly or moth,I lean back in the wicker chair,the porch my fragile skinbetween meand the gorgeous open maw,the suckling swallowing world.

ComicBookGuy I guess if I were back on the Reed College quad and said I didn't know who this was, I'd get dogpiled.

"American poetry has gotten what it's deserved. It´ll come awake again when poets start speaking to people who have to pay the rent, and fark the same woman for thirty years. That's off the record, that's really nasty" -David Foster Wallace(& yes, his wife was a poet)

FlyingJ:ComicBookGuy I guess if I were back on the Reed College quad and said I didn't know who this was, I'd get dogpiled.

"American poetry has gotten what it's deserved. It´ll come awake again when poets start speaking to people who have to pay the rent, and fark the same woman for thirty years. That's off the record, that's really nasty" -David Foster Wallace(& yes, his wife was a poet)

I really, really like DFW as a person. I wish he hadn't got so depressed. :C

I'll admit that the world of literature has suffered because many poets and fiction writers have decided to write for themselves or to fit the MFA formula.

There are, however, many great writers who are producing great stuff. Unfortunately, society no longer looks to poets and fiction writers to reconceptualize and interpret modern living. Instead, we look to The Situation or Sarah Palin.